IT smashes the worldwide box office with near $180 million debut

The 2017 summer box office drought has finally ended, thanks to a sterling performance from the new adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘It’.

Director Andy Muschietti’s movie made a monstrous $179 million worldwide, with $12.3 million (£9.3 million) coming from the UK – where the movie pulled in 82 percent of the ticket sales – and a huge $117 million in the US.

It’s the biggest ever opening weekend for a horror movie, and just missed out on the biggest opening for an r-rated movie (‘Deadpool’ holds that honour with $132.4 million).

The haul also makes it the third highest grossing weekend of the year, and will help bring the US box office out of the worst summer for two decades.

Only Disney’s ‘Beauty And The Best’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ did better, but neither film had a budget of just $35 million.

The movie re-sets King’s novel in the 80s, among a group of small town outcast teenagers who are terrorised by the shape-shifting evil of Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise the Clown.